5798eb74-7bae-13d4-e063-3050940adf8b English dataset British Geological Survey +44 131 667 1000 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact 2026-08-23 UK GEMINI 2.3 http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608749 OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG::27700) WGS 84 (EPSG::4326) Survey fossil specimens index 2026-07-27 creation http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608749 The survey fossil specimens index shows the localities of significant fossil samples, either collected by Geological Survey staff, or donated by individuals and institutions. The BGS fossil collections contain over 2 million specimens, including a sizeable quantity of type, figured and cited material. Each location is associated with a range of sample numbers which are held in the collections. For some locations, the name of the locality is available, and for some specimens, chronostratigraphic and / or lithostratigraphic information is included. Note that because a small number of the fossil locations are confidential, in the publicly accessible version of this dataset, locations have been rounded to the centre of their 100 m British National Grid grid square, and the spatial data are not visible at large scales. More information about specific locations may be available on request. Material is available for inspection on application by e-mail. Specimens are sometimes available for loan to bona fide academics. Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact asNeeded https://resources.bgs.ac.uk/images/geonetworkThumbs/5798eb74-7bae-13d4-e063-3050940adf8b.png Geology GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication Palaeontology Biostratigraphy Geological surveys Fossils Type specimen Sampling Specimen collecting Fossil specimen BGS Thesaurus of Geosciences 2022 revision UK Location (INSPIRE) dataCentre NERC_DDC otherRestrictions The precise locations of certain specimen localities is confidential, so locations are rounded to the nearest 100 m in the publicly available version. Samples known to have come from confidential boreholes are also excluded. otherRestrictions The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the prior permission of the copyright holder, via the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Manager. Use by customers of information provided by the BGS, is at the customer's own risk. In view of the disparate sources of information at BGS's disposal, including such material donated to BGS, that BGS accepts in good faith as being accurate, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the quality or accuracy of the information supplied, or to the information's suitability for any use. NERC/BGS accepts no liability whatever in respect of loss, damage, injury or other occurence however caused. Available under the Open Government Licence subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced NERC materials "Contains NERC materials ©NERC [year]" vector 100 English geoscientificInformation ISO 3166_2 2009 revision GBN British Geological Survey Gazetteer: Geographical hierarchy from Geosaurus 1979 creation GREAT BRITAIN [id=139600] -8.6500 1.7800 49.8500 60.8800 1850 The index was constructed in 2026 by cleaning and exporting data in the Oracle tables BGS.FOSSIL_LOCALITY (mostly Scottish specimens) and BGS.NEW_REGISTRATION (mostly English / Welsh specimens). Because index is static and is not live-linked to the database, however, the underlying tables are updated only irregularly. Specimens which are known to be derived from confidential boreholes have been excluded from the public version. ESRI Shapefile (.shp) Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3142 0115 936 3276 The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South EDINBURGH LOTHIAN EH14 4AP United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor Enquiries British Geological Survey 0115 936 3143 0115 936 3276 Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NG12 5GG United Kingdom enquiries@bgs.ac.uk distributor https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/national-geological-repository/palaeontology-collections/ WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link Palaeontology and biostratigraphy collections information dataset dataset INSPIRE Implementing rules laying down technical arrangements for the interoperability and harmonisation of Geology 2011 publication See the referenced specification false Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services 2010-12-08 publication See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF false This static dataset was created in 2026 by processing and combining pre-existing digital spatial indexes containing fossil specimen metadata. The original digital indexes themselves largely were digitised from paper records before the year 2000. Because of the long history over which samples have been collected, the metadata are incomplete in places.